Jan. 4 (UPI) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams is suing over a dozen charter bus companies for helping to send in migrants from Texas.
In a move to stop Texas Gov. Greg Abbot from shipping busloads of asylum seekers to New York City, Adams on Thursday said he filed suit against 17 transportation companies seeking $708 million to cover the cost of caring for migrants.
“New York City has and will always do our part to manage this humanitarian crisis, but we cannot bear the costs of reckless political ploys from the state of Texas alone,” Adams said. “Today’s lawsuit should serve as a warning to all those who break the law in this way.”
Adams’ lawsuit alleged Abbott’s policy of transporting more than 33,000 migrants to New York City without having the companies pay for their continued care is in violation of New York’s Social Services Law.
The lawsuit has yet to be reviewed by the county clerk.
New York City has struggled to keep up with the financial burden of tens of thousands of migrants coming in since Abbot began Operation Lone Star. Abbot said on Dec. 29 his state has sent over 33,600 migrants to New York City since August 2022.
Abbott responded to the lawsuit in a statement, saying it is “baseless and deserves to be sanctioned.”
“It’s clear that Mayor Adams knows nothing about the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, or about the constitutional right to travel that has been recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court,” Abbott said, asserting every migrant sent to New York City went voluntarily after being authorized by the Biden Administration to remain in the United States.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul expressed support of the lawsuit.
“Governor Abbott continues to use human beings as political pawns, and it’s about time that the companies facilitating his actions take responsibility for their role in this ongoing crisis,” she said. “If they are getting paid to break the law by transporting people in need of public assistance into our state, they should be on the hook for the cost of sheltering those individuals – not just passing that expense along to hard-working New Yorkers.”
The suit comes about a week after Adams issued an executive order restricting migrant buses from arriving in the city. The order required bus drivers who knew they were transporting migrants to the city with fares paid by a “third party” to notify the city 32 hours in advance.
Adams and Hochul both have sounded the alarm in the past year, calling for more federal aid to help deal with the influx of migrants into New York City.
Abbott in previous interviews has taken aim at Adams, calling him a “hypocrite” and accusing him of “playing politics.”
“For all – for one, all these mayors of sanctuary cities. And they say, ‘Oh, bring us your migrants,” Abbott said. “And we sent them migrants, and now they’re complaining about it. It shows they’re hypocrites. It shows that Democrats truly are a party against illegal immigrants, except when it’s confined only to states like Texas.”
Abbot said small Texas towns like Eagle Pass and Del Rio have “no capability of dealing with these illegal immigrants.”
New York City has been under a state of emergency since October 2022, calling the influx of migrants into the city an “unprecedented humanitarian crisis.”
